35 Bangalore post offices to help you enrol for Aadhaar

Enrolment for Aadhaar Unique Identity (UID) has begun in Bangalore, with the General Post Office (GPO) launching the facility through 35 post offices in the city.

Enrolment for Aadhaar Unique Identity (UID) has begun in Bangalore, with the General Post Office (GPO) launching the facility through 35 post offices in the city; one could also enrol for the number through seven post offices in Bangalore Rural.

Ashok Dalwai, deputy director general of the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI), Vasumitra, post master general, Karnataka Circle, and P Raghavan, chief general manager of Karnataka Telecom Circle, launched the first enrolment in the city at the GPO on Friday. Dalwai said that apart from the post offices, the enrolment would also occur through state registration agencies. This facility would be available in a month.

“The state has already floated tenders for finalising the agencies which would assist in the enrolment of people into Aadhaar. People could also walk into the nearest post office for this purpose. The GPO is one of our main non-state registrars,” Dalwai said, adding that details of 40 lakh people in the state had already been received, ahead of enrolment. In Tumkur and Mysore districts, 18 lakh UIDs had already been delivered.

“We will next begin enrolment in Belgaum and Gulbarga divisions, and then come to Bangalore. After that, we could move on to complete Mysore,” Dalwai said.

The GPO distributed a list of 236 post offices, spread across different taluks and in different districts, to assist people in enrolling for the UID. There are 35 post offices in the city — six in Bangalore East and South each, and 22 in Bangalore West. Two agencies have been empanelled in Karnataka Circle for enrolment assistance — Team Life Care Company, Pampa Layout, Hebbal and Comat Technologies, Thimmaiah Road. They will divide the work gathered by the 236 post offices and process the UIDs for the Karnataka Circle. Dalwai said the enrolling would begin in a phased manner once the state registrar agencies were finalised. Dalwai said that people should be careful to spell their names correctly and give the correct addresses while giving details for UID enrolment.

“For the UID, we need four basic details — name, date of birth, address and gender. If a person does not have address proof or other government-approved identification details, we have means to go back and check the details, so people ought to provide us these four details correctly,” Dalwai said.

By March 2012, the delivery of a substantial number of UIDs would be completed in Karnataka, as well as the rest of India.

“As our chairman has already announced, from October, we will deliver a million UIDs each day. We will have to push the process of enrolment so that we can achieve the target of covering one million UIDs per day,” Dalwai said.

Asserting that there was no chance of the UID being misused, Dalwai said, “The UID is a dumb, unintelligent, 12-digit number. It does not reveal anything at all about the person, so the question of manipulating the UID card just does not arise.”

Aadhaar can be used to receive welfare programmes of the government, and the number could be used to get the LPG connection or rations through the public distribution system. It can even help people in getting a scholarship to fund higher studies. The Aadhaar will be based on biometric data. The fingerprints of all 10 fingers and iris mapping of both eyes will be done for each person enrolled. With Aadhaar, one can also link a bank account, and get a refill of the LPG cylinder. It will also help in getting passport or other government work done. UIDAI has partnered with 67 institutions and government bodies to collect details necessary for the UID.

“So far, we have captured details of three crores of people, and delivered 98 lakh UIDs across the country. The GPO is our logistics partner. This association will go a long way,” said Dalwai.